


Spices of the Punjab

by Bow_Ties



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Hints of Thasmin, Humor, Missing Scene, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 23:26:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20750516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bow_Ties/pseuds/Bow_Ties
Summary: A missing scene from "Demons of the Punjab".Yaz and the Doctor have dinner with Umbreen and her mother the night before the wedding -and we all know what happens if a plate of very spicy food is put in front of the Doctor.





	Spices of the Punjab

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always to pandoraspockz for getting rid of all my rogue commas ;)
> 
> And special thanks to Jtrack2 for giving me the idea for this one!

The mood around them was somber, at best. The henna on their hands dried, the small bits of laughter here and there having died down long ago. They were still sitting in a circle, avoiding all eye contact with each other like the plague.

The Doctor knew what would happen come next morning. 

Yaz knew that her grandmother's heart, in less than 24 hours, would be torn to shreds. 

Finally, when the silence had become almost unbearable, Umbreen returned to their small circle, a giant platter of food in hand. She sat it down gently in the middle, smiling at Yaz and the Doctor in turn. 

"Please, help yourselves. It is the family curry, an old recipe that we've had for generations." 

The Doctor's face lit up for the first time since they had finished drawing the henna on her hands, eyes gleaming as she scanned the food in front of her. It made Yaz smile. The Doctor could always be cheered up with good food, especially if there were large amounts of it, and even more so if the large amounts of food were followed by a box of custard creams for dessert - something Yaz was sure the blonde alien was hiding away in one of those mysteriously deep coat pockets of hers. 

"Thanks, Umbreen," the Doctor said, gleefully accepting some flatbread from Umbreen's mother. The curry looked delicious, with its bright colors and intoxicating smell, and she was beyond excited to try out this recipe that was apparently of such great importance to Yaz's family. She leaned forward, proceeding to heap a small mountain of curry onto a piece of flatbread. 

It was in that moment that alarm bells went off in Yaz's head, loud and shrill. Her family's curry was already quite hot for people who were used to it - and she had heard it be described as "a spicy death trap" by guests who weren't. 

"Doctor," she said, leaning over in an attempt to stop the blonde in her tracks. "I don't think you should -" 

Too late. She watched as the Doctor, almost as if in slow motion, opened her mouth wide to shove the entire heap of curry into her mouth, eyes full of anticipation and excitement, like a child on Christmas day. 

She chewed once, twice. For a moment, Yaz thought that maybe the woman had a special resistance to spices - she was an alien after all. But just as she was about to allow herself to relax, she saw the movement of the Doctor's jaw slow down and then stop. 

The alien had clearly miscalculated the amount of spice she could take, since right now, her mouth was on fire. She felt tears slowly rise into her eyes, and it took all her strength to keep them from spilling down her cheeks. Closing her eyes for a moment, the Doctor concentrated on the task at hand: swallowing the volcano she had unwittingly created in her own mouth.

Three large gulps later, she opened her eyes again to everyone around her staring at her. Yaz's brow was furrowed in worry and it caused the Time Lord's mind to fill with panic as she realised that by so hastily swallowing the curry, she had accidentally set her entire oesophagus ablaze.

This wasn't going well. The Doctor had agreed to this particular adventure as a favor to Yaz, and like so many things she had done lately, she was beginning to realise that it was all in order to get the young woman to like her - or at the very least be impressed by her. Crying because she couldn't handle the spice of Yaz's family's curry was definitely not the way to achieve that. 

One more look into the brunette's worried face and the Time Lord knew there was only one way to save face. 

She had to double down. 

Forcing her cheeks up into her brightest, widest smile, despite the burning sensation it caused to ripple across her lips, the Doctor leaned forward, hand outstretched, and went straight for the single whole chili that was lying in the middle of the plate, on top of the curry. 

"Doctor," Yaz began again, her panic now complete. "That’s a ghost chili, please don't - " 

But once more, the young woman could only watch as the Doctor opened her mouth - doubt flashing across her face for a split second before being replaced by determination - and bit off half of the chili. 

It had been a bad decision. What was happening in the Doctor's mouth right now would make the extermination beam of a Dalek feel like a slight tickle. An image of the Pting they had encountered not so long ago, glowing as a bomb exploded inside of it, flashed through her mind. It was probably the most accurate description of what had just happened in her mouth felt like - without any of the joy the Pting had obviously gotten out of it. 

It was then that the Doctor realised that Yaz was now crouching next to her, inspecting her face with slight panic in her eyes. 

"Doctor," she said, voice tense. "Are you alright?" 

"Yes," the Doctor barely managed to breathe out as the now swallowed lava poured through her throat into her stomach. "Of course I am." 

She was most definitely not. Just as she was starting to consider regeneration as a viable option to escape the pain, an idea flashed through her mind. 

"Just," she hissed, voice almost completely gone at this point. "Getting," she paused to take a breath which felt like she was inhaling hot sandpaper. "Dessert," she ended the phrase with what she hoped was a convincing grin, which, judging by Yaz's ever deepening frown, was definitely not working. 

Pushing herself up from the floor, the Doctor tried to avoid looking at anyone, although she could see Umbreen and her mother barely managing to stifle a laugh on the other side of the room. As she walked over to her coat, which was lying neatly folded on a chair next to the wall, she sank down onto her knees. Screwing her eyes shut, she concentrated on the pain in her mouth, conjuring up the energy to heal. 

The relief was almost instant, and the blonde let out a deep, long breath. She almost forgot to grab a box of custard creams out of her coat's pocket in order to complete her alibi before getting up to walk back into the middle of the room. 

As she sat back down on the floor, she grinned at Yaz. 

"Umbreen and her mother are getting you some milk and some more bread," the brunette said. "Are you alright? That curry is very spicy even for me. Not to mention that chili. What were you thinking?"

The Doctor couldn't help but feel her chest swell a tiny bit with pride. She had eaten a curry that even Yaz thought was hot, and she was fine. Well, she was fine thanks to a little help from her Time Lord biology, but that was beside the point. 

"I'm fine, Yaz! Absolutely fine. That wasn't spicy at all!" She grinned. "I'm good with hot food, you know. I once ate the spiciest chili in the galaxy and didn't feel a th-" 

The Doctor stopped mid-sentence as suddenly, she felt something working its way up her throat, and before she could help it, a burp escaped her mouth. 

Except that it wasn't really just a burp. 

A tiny bubble of golden shimmering regeneration energy slipped out between her lips, and stopped to float right in front of Yaz's eyes. 

"Doctor," Yaz said, not taking her eyes of the suspended ball of light. 

"Mh?" the Time Lord replied, doing her best to sound as innocent as was alienly possible as the bubble dissolved with a soft  _ plop _ . 

_ "Did you just use your regeneration energy to heal your mouth?"  _ Yaz hissed between clenched teeth. 

It had been formulated as a question, but the Doctor was pretty sure that it wasn't really a question at all. 

"Uhm," she started, feeling like a child in the Academy again. "I… no?" 

She watched as Yaz slowly turned towards her, incredulous look on her face, and felt her own cheeks turn bright red. 

Just as Yaz opened her mouth, Umbreen and her mother returned to the group, handing a glass of milk to the Doctor. 

"There you go," Umbreen said, chuckling softly. "It'll help, Doctor." 

The blonde was about to say she was fine, but one stern look from Yaz made her close her mouth again, smiling and nodding instead while accepting the glass. 

Throughout the rest of the evening, the Doctor managed to fight her own impulse to reach for the curry again. Every time she felt tempted, it was as if Yaz could sense it, shooting her a sideways look filled with an unspoken stern warning. 

After dinner, Umbreen showed them their place to sleep; a shared space that, after Umbreen had left, the Doctor immediately offered up to Yaz. As she watched Yaz take off her shoes, then reach for the button of her jeans, a sudden feeling of self-consciousness settled in the blonde's chest and so she turned around, her back now to the young woman. Standing like this for a moment, the Doctor finally reached for the curtain that separated their space from the others', pushing it aside. 

"Wait," Yaz called out behind her.

Letting the curtain fall closed again, the Doctor slowly turned around, surprised to find Yaz now suddenly standing just a step away, wearing nothing but a black top and pants. The sudden proximity combined with the unusual amount of skin on display was making the Time Lord nervous, a feeling that was entirely new to this body. 

But a moment later, an even deeper new emotion stirred in the blonde's hearts, as Yaz leaned forward and gently took one of the Doctor's hands into her own, while placing the softest of kisses on her cheek, lips barely brushing the Time Lord's skin. 

"Never change," she whispered. 

Then, just as quickly as it had begun, it was over, the brunette turning around to walk towards the bed as if nothing had happened. 

For a moment, the Doctor stood, dumbfounded, cheek tingling where the young woman's lips had been just a few heartbeats ago. 

Then, she turned around, opening the curtain and letting it fall closed behind her just a second later. As she stepped out the doors of Umbreen's home into the cool night, Yaz's words rang in her ears. 

_ "Never change."  _

It was then that, with the sudden weight of an entire universe dropping onto her chest, the Doctor remembered why, until now, despite all the little moments to impress and make her smile, she had kept her distance from Yaz as much as she could.

Because one day, she  _ would _ change. 

And Yasmin Khan would never look at her the same.


End file.
